Ellis L. Johnson
Ellis Lane Johnson | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1937 |
| Alma mater | Georgia Institute of Technology (B.A. Mathematics), University of California, Berkeley (Ph.D. Operations Research) |
| Occupation(s) | Industrial engineer, professor |
| Employer | Georgia Institute of Technology |
| Known for | Contributions to discrete optimization, integer programming, combinatorial optimization |
| Awards | National Academy of Engineering (1988), IBM Fellow (1990), John von Neumann Theory Prize (2000), George B. Dantzig Prize (1985), Lanchester Prize (1983), Humboldt Senior Scientist Award (1980) |
Ellis Lane Johnson holds the title of Professor Emeritus and serves as the Coca-Cola Chaired Professor at the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering within the Georgia Institute of Technology located in Atlanta, Georgia.
In 1988, Johnson was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering in recognition of his pioneering work in discrete optimization, the development of software, and their effective implementation in manufacturing and distribution systems.
Early life and education
Johnson completed his undergraduate studies with a B.A. in mathematics at Georgia Tech and earned his doctorate in operations research from the University of California at Berkeley in 1965, where he studied under George Dantzig.
Career
Following a three-year tenure at Yale University, Johnson joined the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, where he established and led the Optimization Center from 1982 until 1990. That year, he was honored as an IBM Fellow. Between 1980 and 1981, he was awarded the Humboldt Senior Scientist Award while visiting the University of Bonn, Germany.
Between 1990 and 1993, Johnson was engaged in teaching and research at Georgia Tech, where he co-founded and co-directed the Logistics Engineering Center alongside Professor George Nemhauser. He officially became part of Georgia Tech’s faculty in 1994.
His research primarily addresses optimization challenges related to logistics, including crew scheduling, real-time maintenance, fleet routing and assignment, distribution planning, network optimization problems, and combinatorial optimization.
Awards and honors
Throughout his career, Johnson has been recognized with several distinguished awards such as:
- Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, 2009
- Fellow of INFORMS, 2002
- Recipient of the John von Neumann Theory Prize, INFORMS, 2000
- IBM Fellow, 1990
- Election to the National Academy of Engineering, 1988
- Awarded the George B. Dantzig Prize for achievements in mathematical programming, 1985
- Winner of the Lanchester Prize in 1983 for his collaborative paper with Crowder and Manfred W. Padberg
- Recipient of the Senior Scientist Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, 1980
John von Neumann Theory Prize
Johnson was honored with the John von Neumann Theory Prize alongside Manfred W. Padberg for their seminal contributions to the fields of integer programming and combinatorial optimization. Their work uniquely combined theoretical insights, algorithmic innovation, computational experimentation, and practical applications addressing large-scale problems in industry and transportation.
The award committee emphasized three influential papers from the early 1970s—two co-authored with Ralph Gomory—which advanced Gomory’s group theoretic methods for integer programming. Johnson expanded these techniques to tackle mixed integer programs, playing a crucial role in the development of subadditive methods within integer programming.
In collaboration with Jack Edmonds, Johnson authored a landmark paper demonstrating that several important graph optimization problems can be solved in polynomial time by transforming them into weighted matching problems. For instance, problems such as minimum T-joins and the Postman problem (finding a shortest path covering every edge) are solvable efficiently, contrasting sharply with the NP-hard nature of the traveling salesman problem. This work highlighted how closely related combinatorial challenges can differ significantly in computational complexity.
External links
- H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering
- Profile of Ellis L. Johnson provided by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences